


rest

by duckiesandlemons



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, No Spoilers, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-06-06 16:42:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6761977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckiesandlemons/pseuds/duckiesandlemons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Siegbert tends to a wounded Shiro, and the two talk about the new war that Shiro's been thrust into.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rest

**Author's Note:**

> AKA I remembered why I hated writing haikus in class. I remembered how bad I am at them.
> 
> Non-descript AU where Hoshido is thrown into a bloody civil war due to unrest at the sudden alliance with Nohr. It's _very_ , _very_ loose and messy and honestly I just wanted to write Siegbert kind of doting on Shiro. :' >

Shiro wakes up to pain in his side and the top of the medical tent.

It’s a horrible off white color, stained from their travels, and he can hear Mitama humming in the background as she finishes up whatever work she had left.

“The young prince awakes/ Blood spilt fresh on his bare hands/ Does he feel any guilt?” she’s already at his side, checking his body over to make sure that none of the wounds he had sustained from last battle opened up.  It’s a bit surprising, considering Mitama’s usual modus operandi, and Shiro lets her manipulate his limbs this way and that.

“Guilt?” he asks.  “What guilt?  There's a lot of things happening, here.”

“You are fighting your countrymen, after all,” she continues, seeming to ignore what he says.  When she deems him well enough she drops his arms and forces him to lie back down.  “The barren fields howl/ Haunting voices do ring clear/ A throne of graves.  Hm, well, since you are looking to be back to Shiro levels of health, I’ll let your guest in.”

“Guest?” ignoring Mitama’s rather cryptic haiku--her perception always was unnerving--Shiro focuses on the newcomer that Mitama lets inside.  He’s surprised anyone not in the immediate war council would want to see him.  After all, what he’s done--

“Shiro, you’re alive!” Siegbert’s voice is unexpected.  It makes Shiro perk up, a new source of energy pushing through his body and making him get up.  Mitama clicks her tongue, obviously not thrilled with Shiro’s decision.  Though her attention is quickly dragged to outside when she hears Soleil’s boisterous rambling.

“Hey there, Sieg, long time no see!” Shiro’s cheer isn’t forced at all, though the words are.  

Already, Siegbert has his characteristic frown on his face.  If Shiro wanted to be honest with himself, he didn’t want Siegbert to see him like this.  He didn’t want the young crown prince of Nohr to see him in the medical tent severely wounded and fighting a war against his own countrymen.  It’s embarrassing, less than flattering circumstances.

“Yes, I was hoping that it’d be under different circumstances.”

“My thoughts exactly...uh...I mean I don’t wanna be rude but why are you here this is...Dad wouldn’t want Nohr to intervene.  Pride, trust of the people, all sorts of--”

“I came of my own volition--how could I not when I heard my best friend was fighting for his life to bring peace once more?”

Hearing that makes something in Shiro’s heart flutter, tickling wings against his rib cage.  Either that or that’s the beginnings of pain again.  To hear Siegbert come so willingly, probably defying his father (and isn’t that something--Siegbert going against something King Xander had ordered), just to make sure Shiro was okay.  It’s nice, he thinks, to be regarded so highly.  At the same time--

Shiro’s thoughts are interrupted by the familiar sound of buckles being undone, the rasp of leather somehow loud in the following silence.  Siegbert carefully takes off his vambraces, placing them aside on the small table next to Shiro’s cot.  They’re followed by his gauntlets, also placed aside, until Shiro’s watching Siegbert peel off the thin gloves underneath.

He catches it, then, the familiar splash of red on Siegbert’s armor, how the white of his shirt holds unfamiliar flecks on it that Shiro knows isn’t dye.  Siegbert is always one for practical, and even if it weren’t that Shiro knows that the Nohrian royal family rarely wears red.  At least, the particular shade of red that the blood staining Siegbert’s shirt makes

“You didn’t--”

“That was also of my own choice,” Siegbert says, and he’s already peeling back the blanket resting on top of Shiro.  “I wish to help you any way I can.  I know that father coming to your family’s aid would only bring about a political disaster, but perhaps if it were me…”

“You’re the crown prince!” Shiro blurts out.  “Siegbert, I thought I was the dumb one here!  That still spells a lot of trouble--”

“What can a crown prince and his retainers do to help turn the tide of war so fast?  Nothing, it’ll be a slow process--your enemies think of us as nothing but an annoyance at best,” Siegbert’s smile is small, though grim.  “Here, Midori gave me some medicine to help with burn wounds from magic.”

“Mitama should have gotten most of it…”

“Please, let me do this?”

Shiro chalks it up to more of Siegbert being a busy body, to constantly be doing something to help as best he can.  It’s a habit that Shiro thought he grew out of, but it seems that it’s still there.  Comforting, in a ways.  It’s nice to know that there’s some constant in the tumult that had settled upon Hoshido.

“...so you risked everything to come here?” Shiro picks the conversation back up, obediently lifting his arms so that Siegbert can undo the bandages winding around him.

“I don’t think everything,” Siegbert says.  “Perhaps incurring father’s anger, since I left without much notice, but even he is worried about the state of affairs here.”

“He and dad were pretty close,” Shiro comments.  Though Siegbert abandoning all duty to come and help Shiro, cutting down other Hoshidans and getting his reputation smeared, risking his _life_ , because of their friendship...Shiro can’t help the guilt that bubbles up.  Siegbert has always given so much when he shouldn’t, has always put other’s needs before his own.  This is no exception.

(Shiro squashes down the bitter sting of disappointment at the other understanding that he’s not exclusive to this)

“They were,” Siegbert’s already pulled out some salve, the smell strong and pungent.  Shiro feels like gagging.  If Midori were here, she’d already be making some quip about how it smells awful, but that it would fix him up in no time.  

There is no Midori.

There’s just Siegbert, who is gentle with his hands and barely making a face of disgust as he gently applies the salve to each of Shiro’s burns.

“...man, I didn’t even know I had half of these,” Shiro mutters.  He had been so caught up in fighting, in pushing back the enemy’s army, that he could barely register what hit him and what he hit.  At some point, he remembered an onmyoji appearing but--

But--

“Mitama told me you were in pretty bad shape,” Siegbert’s already moving on to another burn that’s settled dangerously low along Shiro’s hip.  He squirms, the cold of the salve making him instinctively pull away, but Siegbert places a gentle hand on his shoulder to keep him still and continues his work.  “Sword wounds, puncture wounds from shuriken, and then these, as well as broken ribs,” Siegbert’s frown progressively gets worse with each injury he rattles off.

“Damn...how did I live?”

“You’re a tenacious individual.  I’m sure it takes more than that to bring you down, though I do not wish to see that ever happen.”

Though soft, Siegbert’s voice is just as firm, and Shiro lets himself be caught up in each lull and rise of his words.  He understands the underlying message in everything Siegbert tells him, in how his hands (callused and tender) apply salve to every ache on Shiro’s body.

“I won’t die,” Shiro says after a few more beats.  “I can’t die.”

“I won’t let you,” Siegbert’s already moved on to applying new bandages.  Every tap to Shiro’s arm is a signal, and Shiro listens.  He raises up one arm, lets it be wrapped, lowers it, repeats process with the other, and so on, until he’s wrapped up again.  Outside, they hear Soleil laugh, accompanied by Mitama’s frustrated grumbling.

“...who came with you?”

“Soleil and Midori did--ah, we ran into Midori along the border.  She wanted to come, despite the danger.”

“Asugi?”

“Most likely.”

Very Midori like, indeed.  During these times, especially, she must worry.  Shiro hates doing it, but Asugi is one of the best he has--one of the ones he can trust the most. He sends Asugi out to gather information, to sabotage enemy camps and bring back whatever they can use.  With the recent turn of the war it’s never sure if Asugi will come back.  Midori probably just wants to protect her cousin, much like how Siegbert came to...came to protect Shiro.  

Something twists in Shiro’s gut at that thought.  It’s accompanied by a bitter taste in his mouth, and the smell resting in his nostrils from the salve isn’t helping either.  He couldn’t risk Siegbert...Siegbert _dying_ because of him.  He couldn’t let his best friend, the one who helped Shiro take that one step further to be who he is now, _die_.  

Just because Shiro couldn’t get his own act together against his own people.

Not like he wanted to raise his weapon to his countrymen.

“Sieg, you gotta go.”

Shiro makes up his mind.

“Shiro--”

He can’t drag Siegbert into this.  Not with the risks involved.

“Seriously I can’t--I can’t let you get involved in this in good conscience.  This is a Hoshido thing I don’t want you to ruin your reputation--”

“I chose to come here, please, let me help you!”

Don’t say that, Shiro desperately thinks, because I’ll cling and never let you go.  Siegbert is comfort, is familiarity when Shiro can’t even be with his own father and mother due to the mess their country has fallen in.  Shiro doesn’t want to be the cause of Siegbert’s downfall, he doesn’t want that blood on his hands.

Fear and desperation mix in his throat.

“No!”

It came out harsher than intended.  Siegbert visibly flinches, face twisting into one of hurt.  The pain that rips through Shiro is from more than his lingering wounds, it’s--

“...I won’t,” Siegbert whispers.  “I can’t.  Shiro, you’re important to me.”

_And you’re important to me as well, I don’t want you to die.  Please understand this, too._

“Look--”

Shiro doesn’t get anything else out.  The tent flap opens, Soleil standing there with Mitama.  They were most likely lured in by how loud Shiro had been in his denial of Siegbert’s help.

“Visiting time is over, a weary prince needs rest,” Mitama says.

“That means you too, Prince Siegbert!” Soleil chirps.  “Come on, why don’t you join me for some tea with a couple of the nice ladies I met--”

When they leave, and it’s just him and Mitama in the silence of the tent, Shiro finds himself falling back.  His limbs are heavy, his mind trying to piece together the sudden shifts and changes in their conversation--

“The heaviness lingers/Guilt hung on camellia blooms/The young prince regrets.”

“Can it, Mitama,” Shiro huffs.  

She says no more, instead leaving with a knowing look on her face.

**Author's Note:**

> I also have a twitter for general yelling about things located [here](https://twitter.com/ducksandlemons)
> 
> My generic, brand new, there's very few things on it for yelling about fire emblem and my ships is located [here](https://twitter.com/ryoumander) and boy do I yell a lot


End file.
